


Plaster the Holes with Liquor

by orange_8_hands



Category: Supernatural
Genre: 5 Things, Alcohol, Canonical Character Death, Fights, Gen, Wordcount: 1.000-3.000
Language: English
Status: Completed
Published: 2012-01-01
Updated: 2012-01-01
Packaged: 2017-10-28 15:50:14
Rating: Not Rated
Warnings: Creator Chose Not To Use Archive Warnings
Chapters: 1
Words: 1,217
Publisher: archiveofourown.org
Story URL: https://archiveofourown.org/works/309495
Author URL: https://archiveofourown.org/users/orange_8_hands/pseuds/orange_8_hands
Summary: <blockquote class="userstuff">
              <p>Five fights John had with his friends</p>
            </blockquote>





	Plaster the Holes with Liquor

**Author's Note:**

> Originally posted on [my LJ](http://orange-8-hands.livejournal.com/1349.html), Nov 2011.

  
i.  
   
Daniel isn’t stupid, the only time John Winchester buys you a drink is when he wants something, but Daniel is a hunter and hunters are perfectly fine having a little whiskey and keeping their secrets from the the one offering.  
   
“I’ve been tracking a bit of lore,” he finally says, after they exchange several stories and a few more lies, bottle almost empty, Daniel feeling it settle in his bones.  
   
“Bout vamps?” Daniel asks, because he’s a hunter, one track mind he’s gonna wipe them out until their extinct, until he can close his goddamn eyes and not see little Peter’s face, not enough blood in a child for more than a few meals why did they have to take Peter.  
   
“Bout something that can kill vamps,” John allows, leaning back into his seat and watching Daniel with hooded eyes. “Wouldn’t waste it on vamps though.”  
   
Daniel shrugs. Everybody knows about John Winchester and his yellow-eyed demon, even if demons usually had black eyes. “What is it?”  
   
“A gun,” John says, and Daniel snorts, but John just keeps watching him with steady eyes.  
   
“A gun.” Daniel says, and whiskey can’t keep his voice from inching into incredulous.  
   
“A special gun,” John says. There’s a pause. “You got something like that Daniel?”  
   
“Yeah, I got a special gun,” he tells John. “All my guns are special.” He doesn’t make the crude joke and grab his crotch, because John ain’t got a sense of humor like that. “None can kill any damn vamps though.”  
   
John slams his hand on the table, leaning forward, and Daniel’s been a hunter a lot of years but there’s something about John Winchester that makes him want to lean back. You either got caught in his wake or you got mowed down, nothing in between.  
   
“Do you have the goddamn gun, Daniel?” he asks.  
   
“Don’t fucking threaten me, John,” he says. “I don’t have no vamp killing gun, so back the hell off.”  
   
A long, long pause, and then John nods, once. “Fine. You hear anything about it, you let me know,” and he slides out the booth and leaves, just like that.  
   
Daniel likes John, he does, and he wishes him the best, but John ain’t the only one who lost family, and the gun only has ten bullets left, and there’s a vampire who drank Peter down like a fucking hose.  
   
John can have it when he’s done. 

  
ii.

  
“Don’t start with me,” she warns John, because he needed the warning, not a lick of sense in his head. Missouri pauses in her mixing to raise her spoon and point it at him. “Just be quiet for once in your life John Winchester.”  
   
Of course he doesn’t stay silent, because for all John can pull cons (like you can fool a psychic about how you feed your boys, its cons and stealing and Missouri made peace with his habit of breaking the law a long time ago), he really doesn’t understand people. “I just-“  
   
“I mean it, John,” she says. “You want to come back into this home you keep your fool head silent.”  
   
He finally does, and Missouri doesn’t need to be psychic to know it’s the first time he listened to her since she told him how poor Mary died, leaving Missouri to mutter and mix and roll the dough into neat little balls.   
   
She places them on the pan, pops them in the oven, and finally turns to him. He’s actually at the kitchen sink at this point, washing the last of her dishes, and Missouri nods in approval.  
   
But then he turns and opens his mouth and Missouri is a psychic, not a saint, so she yells back.

  
iii.

Bobby sees the amulet around Dean’s neck and it doesn’t take a goddamn genius to figure out what happened, but Bobby also learned some damn good lessons from Karen so he keeps his mouth shut till after Sam gives him a flying tackle hello and after Dean grins with bright eyes and after he’s already chocked back the desire to knock their idjit heads together, sending them to run around the junk yard five hours after they arrived because they can goddamn drive a man to drink, and Bobby doesn’t need any help with that since Karen died.

John tells him about some of the latest cases, bout the only thing John will talk about, and Bobby let’s him spin out his stories (John’s a good hunter and Bobby’s always happy for a little more details about what they’re facing out there), but when Dean and Sam finally bunk down in the living room for the night enough is enough.

“You miss Christmas, John?” Bobby asks, and he’ll say this for him, the man doesn’t flinch.

“Three days,” John admits.

Years later, when he holds his shotgun to John’s face and warns him about coming back, because that was a stupid fucking move and Bobby doesn’t take with that kind of recklessness, not like that, he takes some satisfaction in knowing John’ll listen to him this time.

  
iv.

Bobby didn't know, but Pastor Jim did.

"You can't just show up in and out of that boy's life," he said, and John had shot back "What, you think I should fuck him up too?"

Jim's lips thinned and he looked away and Dean never asked out loud where his father was because he was already told hunting, and Sam never asked because he didn't want to care, so Jim never had to lie, nothing but let the lies already told stand. John had three pictures he kept in his wallet, and the youngest boy was not in any of them, but Jim had been taking pictures of the Winchester boys for a lot of years, snapshots so they had something when they looked back on their childhood beside a car, and he took the photos John pressed in his hand and put them with the rest. Dean wouldn't know how to ask and Sam wouldn't care to, so it was okay, it was fine that he didn't hide them. John took some periodically and added them to a warehouse in New York, remnants of his children left between the clutter of sacred objects and cursed items.

"You should tell them," Jim said once, eyes skimming a book he’d already read. John's hands stopped in the act of cleaning his guns, the soft sound of cloth against metal pausing before continuing.

"It's not gonna happen, Jim, so do me a favor and shut the fuck up about it."

They killed the werewolf and Jim stands in front of his flock and talks about mistakes and forgiveness. The man he's giving the sermon to is holed up in a motel room pretending he doesn't have a hangover, and one son is on his way to California and the other isn't, and only John and Jim know about the third one.

"Asking for forgiveness is not a sign of weakness," he says. "Granting it when you don't think you can is just another form of strength." 

"You should tell them," Jim had once said, but even after John's bones were burned against the edge of a forest Jim kept his silence.  

  
v.

He shoots Bill in the face, and burns his body.

**Author's Note:**

> Whoops, forgot Jim died before John.


End file.
